


Die Anywhere Else

by Echo (Lyrecho)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Coming of Age, Family, Feels, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, MURDER CULTS, Mysteries, Night In The Woods Inspired, Pre canon divergence, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-06 13:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10335734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Echo
Summary: Welcome to the Falls. Gralea adjacent (civilization adjacent); a picturesque and quiet town - perfect for settling down with a family, or for a holiday!When the long negotiations with the empire draw tense, Regis sends his son and heir away to the last place Niflheim would ever think to look for him - Gralea Falls, a small town named for its one defining feature in the middle of absolutely nowhere in imperial territory.Go there, lay low, and pout until he can go home - that's the plan.Of course, things can never be that easy...|Tumblr||Twitter|





	1. home and away

The sign read, Welcome To Gralea Falls.

“I thought Gralea was the capital,” Noctis grumbled, and sunk lower into his seat, head resting on his chin as he leant up against the window. The sky outside was overcast and drizzly – as if responding to his mood.

“It is,” Cor said, from up front where he was driving. Next to him, Ignis (who had driven all day) was sleeping, just like Gladio and Iris were beside Noctis himself. “Think of the falls as…Gralea adjacent.”

“I thought the capital was days away.”

“Everything in Niflheim is Gralea adjacent,” Cor said. “Right now, even we are Gralea adjacent.”

“I think I’d rather be dead than Gralea adjacent,” Noctis mumbled. “Why are we here, again?”

“Because negotiations with Niflheim are getting tense, and your father is worried for you,” Cor said, and signaled a turn – Noctis blinked as buildings began to break up the trees they’d been driving through for hours. “And he highly doubted that the empire would bother to look for you in a town that basically equates to their own armpit.”

Despite himself, Noctis snorted.

“The population of the falls is only a few hundred,” Cor said. “Trust me, kid – I researched this place thoroughly. No one is going to pay any attention to you here – or look for you.”

“I suppose,” Noctis sighed, and leaning up against the other door, Gladio stirred – and Noctis prayed to the Lady that he would remain asleep; he’d been grouchy ever since they’d been sent away. While he’d been fine with the idea of both he and Ignis leaving with Noctis himself, as watching over him was their duty – when Gladio had learned that Iris was going to be coming with them, as well as Cor – he’d grown quiet, withdrawn – likely worried about what this would mean for those left back home, if they were all being bodily thrown out of the very kingdom of Lucis with the Lord Marshall along for the ride.

“Well, we’re here,” Cor said quietly, and Noctis blinked himself out of his thoughts to see the sky darkening with hues of orange and navy – streetlights flickering on down along the road the car was pulled to a stop in, bugs beginning to flutter around them.

“Here?” He muttered, and looked up and down the street each way – just houses, and more cars. Lawns, mailboxes, a cat slinking along a fence – regular suburbia. “Where is here, exactly?”

“Somewhere safe, at least for tonight,” Cor said. “We’ll be getting into our own place tomorrow, but for now it would be best to just touch base with allies.”

Noctis blinked, and leant across the sleeping form of Iris to push his head over Cor’s shoulder. “Allies?” He asked.

“A friend,” Cor said quietly, and unstrapped himself, opening the door. “Get those two up and keep quiet – let me do the talking, okay?”

Noctis rolled his eyes but nodded, reaching out to shake a protesting Iris awake as Cor did the same for Ignis. Within short order, they were all conscious, if not quite ‘awake’ yet, and groaning as they piled out of the car, stretching.

A prickling sensation on the back of his neck, and Noctis turned his head to see an old man staring at him – no, Cor – with suspicion in his eyes as he squinted.

He wasn’t the only one who noticed their watcher – Gladio and Ignis, already wary and alert just from being in Niflheim, stiffened subtly, as if bracing for a fight. Iris, blinking, clearly hadn’t noticed the man in the house just down from them, but she knew her brother’s body language, and followed his wariness through accordingly.

In contrast, Cor just summoned up a smile to his face that had Noctis blinking with how normal it made the usually stern Marshall look – and held up a hand to the old man. “Evening,” he called, and Noctis gaped at the flawless Nif accent that left Cor’s mouth. “This is the Argentum residence, yes?”

The old man, with his window open, grumbled something Noctis couldn’t quite pick up before saying, “and who’s askin’?”

“I’m an old friend of Sol’s,” Cor said easily. “Haven’t seen her in a few years; just wanted to make sure I have the right address.”

The old man was still squinting at them, which Noctis thought was a bit unfair – that was some gold class acting, he totally would have bought Cor’s story – but before he could like, go call the police or whatever it was that the Nifs had for law enforcement, the door to the house they had parked at opened, and yellow light flooded out onto the lawn.

A blonde woman stood stern and frowning at the door. She looked about Cor’s age, and her arms were crossed as she stared at them. “Get in, you idiot,” she said, addressing Cor directly, and then she smiled at the old man. “Good night, Mr. Ashcroft,” she said pointedly.

The old man sniffed, and then his curtains were shut with a yank. The woman turned back to them, one eyebrow raised. “I was serious, Leonis,” she said. “In. Now.”

Noctis, personally, would have been terrified of the woman just for her tone of voice alone – it was way too similar to Violet Amicitia’s when she was yelling at her children (and at him) when they did something wrong – but Cor just rolled his eyes. 

“Good to see you too, Sol,” he said, and began to wander up to the door she held open, gesturing for the rest of them to follow him.

-x-

“This place…is really empty.”

“Hmm?” Prompto turned from where he was frowning at the absolutely wrecked payphone screwed into the wall by the caged up vending machine that had resided in the train station since forever, and blinked at Aranea. “Oh, yeah – the rest of the falls don’t get much better,” he said. “Empty all the way.”

“Empty for days?” Aranea asked, a smile in her voice.

“For days,” Prompto confirmed, and picked up his bag from where he’d dropped it, slinging it over his shoulder. “No phone – some kid probably came and vandalized it.” He shrugged. “Don’t know why, but the young ones around here have always been into rampant petty destruction.”

Aranea looked at him. “You were a delinquent, weren’t you?”

“I had a phase,” Prompto said. “I admit that freely. The falls were probably glad to be rid of me when I left for Gralea.”

“Well…will they be happy to have you back?”

Prompto laughed. “One can only hope,” he said. “And it looks like we’re walking.”

Aranea shrugged, shifting the weight of her own bag. “At least it’s a nice night,” she said. “No rain, no clouds, the moon is near full…”

“Perfect night to be murdered in the woods,” Prompto sighed, and at Aranea’s questioning hum, clarified: “Only way to town proper unless you want to walk miles is to cut through the woods.”

She frowned. “What about daemons?”

Prompto blinked. He hadn’t even thought about that – sometimes, it felt like he’d known Aranea for so long that it was easy to forget she hadn’t actually grown up in the falls with him. “Daemons are rare around these parts,” he said. “Like, I was actually surprised at how many Gralea got flooded with when I moved up there. You pretty much never see daemons in the falls.”

Aranea blinked, and almost actually pouted. “Aww,” she said. “I could totally go for some daemon killing right now.”

“Well, I couldn’t,” Prompto grumbled. “I’m already dealing with the fact that my mother no longer loves me, I don’t need impending daemon murder to worry about on top of that.”

Aranea snorted. “Your mother forgot to pick you up from the train station; I’m sure she still loves you,” she said. “And as long as you stick by me, blondie, no way are any daemons going to get at you.”

“Thanks,” Prompto said. “I mean, I think.”

Aranea shook her head at him, smiling faintly. “If we’re walking I want food,” she said, and began to rummage through her pockets for change. “That vending machine works, right?”

“Well, last time I was here, yeah,” Prompto said. “But I make no guarantee that the food is still good to eat, and the machine’s always been a little…finicky.”

She shrugged. “If it doesn’t give me what I want I’ll beat the crap out of it,” she said. “That’s like, my specialty. I’m good at that.”

“I know,” Prompto said. “Even if I don’t carry the bruises now, my body will always remember.”

Aranea laughed, and turned her attention towards the vending machine.

Left summarily alone for a moment, Prompto sighed, and turned in a circle, observing the empty train station around him – the flickering lights, the cold iron tracks, the dirty tiles and the fading yellow line. Somehow, just from looking at this few meter stretch of a train station, he knew that nothing about Gralea Falls had changed…at least, not on the outside.

He closed his eyes, and just stood for a moment, toeing that fading yellow line, listening to the night air rush through the tunnel.

And then, faintly, from behind – up the stairs that led up off the platform – tinny laughter, like an old recorded laugh track.

He blinked his eyes open, and rolled his head over to look at Aranea – she was still fiddling around at the vending machine, gently kicking at the bottom of it as if testing how much strength she could exert before it broke – so it wasn’t her making that noise.

He looked over, and up, in the opposite direction – towards the stairs – and he hummed, and began to walk over, heading up the steps carefully to peer into the room above the platform – empty and bare as the rest of the station and Gralea Falls; the noise came from a television cracked over with static, like the bad reception mixed with blown out speakers had decided to torture the ears of everyone and anyone nearby.

“This station is closed.”

Prompto jumped, and damn near fell back down the stairs when a voice spoke up from pretty much right beside him – looked over, to see a woman dressed in a pair of overalls and a flannelette shirt, a utility belt slung low about her waist. He blinked at her – ink dark hair like strands of long silk and shell-pink lips; hands that had no visible callouses as far as he could see – whoever she was, she seemed more like a woman playing dress up for a party than an actual worker, but there was dust across her cheeks and nose and the tools on her belt were clearly well used.

“Um,” he said, and the woman just stared at him.

“The station is closed,” she said. “Not a lot of people travel at night these days. Not a lot of people travel to the falls, especially.”

“Got the last train,” Prompto said blankly. “Not travelling. I like, live here.” He squinted at the woman. He hadn’t been away from home for that long – he’d thought he’d known everyone that lives in the falls. His mum was like, hardwired into the gossip vines of the falls, too. If someone new had turned up, she totally would have told him about it.

“Well, the station is closed,” the woman repeated. “The doors are locked.”

Prompto stared at her. “…well, can you…open them?”

“…” She blinked at him. “I have keys,” she said. “But I’m leaving now, and I have to make sure the doors are locked behind me when I go, so you should go and get your friend now.” Or I’m leaving your ass here, Prompto heard in the undertones of her words.

Prompto went. Jumping down to the bottom of the stairs, he called out for Aranea – who turned to look at him, arms weighed down with more food then he knew she’d had change for.

He sighed. “How much did you beat the vending machine up?”

She grinned at him. “Well, it won’t be giving me lip again, that’s for sure.” Her expression turned considering. “It probably won’t be giving anyone lip, actually.”

Briefly, Prompto closed his eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t break the vending machine.”

“Maybe a little,” Aranea admitted. “Why? There aren’t any cameras down here, are there?”

Prompto snorted. “Of course not,” he said. “But that’s not the point, you morally bankrupt thief.”

“Hey, I paid for this stuff,” Aranea protested as she shoved said ‘stuff’ into her bag. “Some of this stuff, whatever, same difference.”

"I'm sure the vending company will think the same thing, A."

"I'm sure it won't care, since I can only assume it went bankrupt in the fifties."

"I'll stop bugging you if you chuck me a wagon wheel."

"Deal."

-x-

Cor repressed a sigh as Sol led them in and then shut and locked the door, twisting in chain and deadbolt before turning to glare at him.

"You're damn lucky you have a nice ass, Leonis," she hissed. "I really don't need any more reasons to be written up for treason."

He offered her a smile, feeling the curiosity radiating from the brats behind him. "It'll be fine, Sol," he said.

"Yeah, that's what you said last time," she muttered. "Do you remember what happened last time? Because I do."

Cor forced the smile wider. "It'll be fine, Sol," he repeated.

She sighed, and ran a hand through her hair, shoulders slumping. Seeming to dismiss Cor, she turned her attention to the brats behind him - "have you kids eaten, yet?"

A murmur of a disagreeing chorus - "no," Noctis said, and though he'd been hostile and wary of the plan all day, there were the obvious tones of a starving teenage boy swayed by food showing in his voice. "We've been in the car all day."

Sol smiled at him, more genuine than any emotion she'd shown Cor so far - it figured; Noctis and her son were about the same age, weren't they?

"Well, I've got a pot on the stove," Sol offered. "It's my son's favourite -" she broke off with a gasp, eyes wide. "Shit," she swore. "I forgot. Shit."

-x-

The night wasn't cold, but the air still carried the chill that always came when the sun went away; the lingering temperature drop of near absolute darkness.

Prompto looked towards the wall of trees and the path that disappeared into the undergrowth as he hugged his arms around himself and sighed.

"Through the woods?" Aranea asked.

"Yeah," Prompto said, and stepped forward. "Through the woods."


	2. sleeping and waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ahh I'm glad people like this au!
> 
> Super huge <3<3<3 to my good friend isk, who drew fanart!!!
> 
> http://iskraeon.tumblr.com/post/158577320273/die-anywhere-else-joses-fic-is-killing-me-and

Prompto was incredibly grateful for the light of the nearly full moon as it shone through the trees – only a few metres into the woods, the clear gravel of the ‘nature walk’ path trailed off into unkempt undergrowth and rotting leaves; the only tracks visible the ones twisting and winding through the trees created by animals.

“This is crazy,” Aranea murmured, and Prompto paused from where he was focusing hard on where he was placing his feet to turn to face her. Her head was craned back, her eyes wide and swimming with that full moonlight. “Even with all these leaves above us, blocking out the sky…there are so many stars, and they’re all so… _visible_.” She sent him a smile. “I missed this, in Gralea. Travelling with the hunters, my parents and then the military – the stars were always a constant. Just…up there, shining.”

“Yeah,” Prompto agreed. “When I went to Gralea for college, the stars were one of the things I missed most, too. It was like I’d just lost my last link home – the whole train trip to the capital, they’d still been easy to see, but pretty much the moment we approached the border, they just…vanished into the smog. I didn’t really feel alone until then, and every time I looked up at the sky in Gralea, that loneliness just… _grew_ , until it almost crushed me. At home the stars were familiar, like guardians watching me, but in Gralea they were just gone.”

“Gralea sucks,” Aranea said.

“Gralea _sucks_ ,” Prompto agreed.

She sighed. “How much further till we hit the falls?”

Prompto laughed. “The falls themselves are quite a ways away – but town shouldn’t be much further.” He squinted up at the stars they’d just been discussing and tried to place his exact location, placing the constellations in his mind with all their bright points. “A bit north and we’ll hit the ridge, I think,” he said. “Then it’s just a short drop and we’ll be right outside town limits.”

“Nice,” Aranea said, and they started walking once more, leaves crunching underfoot. “The lack of daemons is weird, though.”

“Says you,” Prompto said. “The abundance of them weirded me out when I first got to Gralea. I mean, daemons in a city? A human populated city?”

“Well, at night, sure,” Aranea said. “The only hard and fast rule of those abominations is that they can’t come out during the day. I think the cities without them are weirder – mostly because they assume that since they don’t have a daemon problem they’ll never have a daemon problem, and so don’t plan accordingly. That’s like saying, _I’ve never had a termite problem so I’ll never have a termite problem_. It’s limiting, and stupid. You should always prepare for the worst.”

“You speaking from experience?”

“Little bit,” she said. “There’s a reason I joined with the army so young, and it wasn’t just because I was a military brat.”

“You met Biggs and Wedge in the army, right? You served in the same unit?”

“For a while. I was surprised to see them attending the same college I ended up going to, you know.” She grinned. “Less surprised to see them together, though. Those two are inseparable.”

“ _Insufferable_ , more like. You weren’t in a dorm with them.”

“Ah, those lovebirds.” Aranea’s voice was fond. “Your suffering was for a good cause, Prompto.”

“If you say so,” Prompto said, and pulled his phone out of jacket pocket – tapped the screen to life to see the time written across it in blinking white numbers.

“Is it very late?” Aranea asked. “It was only just dark when the train got in – we can’t have been wandering for that long.”

“Just gone nine,” he said. “And the falls still have no signal – typical of home.”

“Eh,” she said. “That’s not too bad.” She squinted at him. “So, we dropping straight to your mum’s house, or..?”

Prompto shook his head. “It’s on the other side of town from the ridge,” he said. “I have a friend who lives closer to the limits we’ll be entering through; so we’ll go bug him instead.”

Aranea nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

-x-

Cor watched the kids watch Sol curiously as they ate, and tried not to feel too much panic – for as long as he’d known her, she’d been incredibly wound up, flipping from stress to stone cold calm in a second – but this frantic, distracted frazzlement was new. What had happened to her, in those years since he had last seen her?

The faint dial of a phone ringing out filled the room once more, and Sol sighed as she slammed the receiver back down. “I don’t know why I’m bothering,” she said miserably. “There’s no signal out here, anyway.”

Noctis swallowed his mouthful and tilted his head at her. “Then why do you have the phone?”

Sol stared at them like she’d forgotten they were in her house, let alone sitting at her table. “Because everyone has a phone,” she said finally.

Noctis’ face clearly screamed _but why own something if it doesn’t work_ , but – thankfully – he turned back to his dinner silently.

“If you’re that worried about Prompto, Sol, I can drive to the station to pick him up,” Cor offered. He remembered the little blond bundle wrapped up in Sol’s arms as soot and flames painted the sky with streaks of black and orange, and honestly the idea of that kid being out in the wilderness at night concerned him.

But Sol shook her head. “He won’t be at the station,” she said. “Maybe he’d be more cautious if he was still in the capital – maybe. But around here, all the kids that grew up in the falls get kind of…complacent. Prompto’s always been impatient. He’s probably halfway through the woods by now. Even if you went, you wouldn’t find him.” She bit at her lip. “Best to just leave him to his own devices.”

Her own reluctance to follow her words showed clear on her face – but in that moment Iris, who had been yawning in an ever growing rhythm for about twenty minutes, ever since they’d sat down, nearly collapsed into her bowl, chin slipping off of her hand.

The moment she slipped, she jerked back up, just before she hit her dinner, suddenly awake with a yelp – and next to her, Gladio looked far more alert, too; Noctis watching with wide eyes.

Sol’s attention seemed fixed on Iris – “Sweetheart,” she said. “There’s a bed upstairs if you need it.”

Iris turned beet red. “But, uh –” she flailed. “What about Noct?”

“Prince or not, youngest gets the bed,” Sol said sternly, with the voice of a mother used to getting her way mixed with a commander used to having orders promptly followed. “The boys can take the couch.”

Iris blinked at Sol. “But…from what you were saying, isn’t that your sons bed?”

Sol sighed. “Like I said, he’s impatient,” she said. “Also incredibly lazy at times. He won’t be making his way across town after a night-time hike in the woods just for his own bed. He’ll find somewhere else to crash – he has friends in that side of town.”

-x-

The lights in the Chocosnack were still lit up, bugs flapping around and beating against the scratched up plexiglass of the store front – Prompto grinned as he walked up to the automatic door, Aranea close behind him, and stepped through as a buzzer went off.

The sole worker manning the counter looked up as just as the door slid shut behind them, and paled.

"Oh, no." Loqi's voice was low with horror. "It's you."

"You're still alive?" Prompto asked. "And working here? Shame you didn't die in a freak fryer accident."

"Shame you didn't get eaten alive by daemons in Gralea."

"Sad that you didn't do us all a favour and crack your head open while mopping."

"I thought you said you two were friends," Aranea interjected, looking between the two of them curiously.

"We are," they said in unison.

“Best friends,” Prompto ascertained.

“Like, since forever,” Loqi agreed. “Asshole dragged me into way too much trouble as kids for me to get _nothing_ out of it.” He squinted at Aranea. “Hi. Who are you?”

“My new best friend,” Prompto said, slightly miffed. “What do you mean, ‘I dragged you into trouble?’ Any trouble dragging was mutual.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Loqi said. “Why are you here?”

“To say hi?”

“I meant geographically. Like, generally. I thought things were going good in Gralea? Why are you back in the falls?” He squinted at Aranea even harder, eyes screwing up so much that Prompto was nearly one hundred percent certain there was no way he was seeing anything through them. “Is she your girlfriend? Did you knock her up?”

Prompto choked, and Aranea _cackled_. “You kiddos are about a decade too young to even be _dreaming_ of my fine ass. No, I – I’m just a friend.” She offered Loqi a smile, which Prompto supposed was better than the ass-kicking he’d been expecting after a comment like that, even if said smile had edges that made him nervous. “Aranea,” she said, and held out her hand as she stepped forward.

“Aranea,” Loqi repeated. “Nice to meet you.”

Prompto leant up against the counter that was probably covered in at least a thin sheen of grease – if there was one thing he knew about the falls, it was that nothing had ever changed, and Loqi had pretty much single handedly run the Chocosnack since he’d gotten a part time job there back when they were fourteen. Being promoted to full time worker wouldn’t have made Loqi any likelier to clean the place more thoroughly, that was something else he just knew for fact.

“So, what are you guys doing here?” Loqi leant up against the counter from the other side, and Prompto could feel his head hover over his shoulder. “It’s nearly ten; I was just about to close up.”

“My mother doesn’t love me anymore,” Prompto said. “I’m homeless and I’m dragging Aranea down into my homeless depths.”

“…You need a place to stay?”

“Just for tonight,” Prompto said. “Though, if you’re still swinging for a roommate, Aranea needs a place to crash while she’s in the falls. She can’t crash on my couch for…however long we’re here. My mum will kill me.”

“Good,” Loqi said. “If you’re dead I can finally put my plan to weasel my way into your place into action. Especially if Sol doesn’t love you anymore; she’ll be in the market for a new son.”

Prompto kicked him. “Oh, shut up.”

Aranea had simply been watching them with amusement in her eyes up until that moment – “You’re looking for a roommate?” She asked.

Loqi blinked, and turned his attention to her. “Yeah, literally,” he said. “I’m renting out my top bunk.”

“Loqi’s scared of heights, that’s why he sleeps on the bottom one,” Prompto confided.

“I am _not_ ,” Loqi protested. “But if there’s some sort of fire alarm, I’d much rather just to have to _roll_ out of bed then climb out of it. Climbing’s for stairs in a fire, and my building already has enough of those.” He turned back to Aranea. “My parents fostered me and like, a million siblings. The entire apartment complex is full of Tummelts.” He grimaced. “Okay, maybe not the biggest selling point.”

Aranea shrugged. “Not like that means anything to me,” she said. “And hey – a bed is a bed is a bed.”

“For sleeping and for sex and for murder,” Prompto muttered.

“Murder?”

“It’s the first thing that popped into my head okay, leave me be. I’m tired. I just _hiked_ through the _woods_. At _night_.”

“So?” Loqi shrugged. “We used to do that all the time as kids.”

“Yeah, and it was easy then,” Prompto agreed, and sighed. “Why can’t we be kids, again?”

“Because the world sucks and life is cruel and all adults are out to get us with their agenda,” Loqi said gloomily.

“And that agenda is?”

“Recruit us into the ranks of Adulthood and then send us out to collect newer, younger members to drag into hell with us.”

“The truth of adult life,” Prompto nodded solemnly. “You become just as much of a life sucking parasite as you were as a teen or a kid or an embryo.”

“The human life cycle,” Loqi agreed, and they knocked their fists together in a toast.

“Billions of years of evolution led up to _this_ ,” Aranea sighed. “Seems like no matter where I go, I’m going to be followed by a veritable duo of idiots.”

Prompto blinked at her. “Whenever I next boot up Daemontower I’m so telling Biggs and Wedge you said that.”

-x- 

The light gently breaking through the windows was grey when Noctis was shaken awake by Cor. His neck and back ached something fierce from spending the night on a couch he was sure was made of velvet stuffed with _nails_ , and he grumbled as he forced stiff limbs to stand him up, yawning in time with Iris, who was making her own stumbling way down the stairs.

“Up and at ‘em,” Cor said. “We’re getting into our own house in the square today, and I want to be fully settled in to the town before lunch so we can do some recon – get to know who, exactly, we’re going to be spending a currently unknown amount of time living among.” He frowned. “Iris, if we’re still here when break ends, we have records to enroll you here, so don’t worry about missing anything. Noct, you’ll be deferring for a year if it comes down to it – sorry.”

Noctis just blinked, not even caring for Cor’s words so much as the context that came with them – “Just how long are we meant to be staying here, exactly?”

Cor shrugged. “Until the king says it’s time to come back,” he said. “And these orders, about you and Iris and schooling – they all come direct from him. We’re in this one for the long game, kids.”

Noctis just shook his head in disbelief.

“Sol is still asleep,” Cor said. “She knows we were leaving first thing and I wrote her a note anyway, so there’s no need to worry about waking her up – but if something ever goes wrong, this house is safehouse number two, okay?”

“Okay,” Iris agreed, her jaw cracking wide around a yawn as she pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Fine,” Noctis said.

“Good,” Cor smiled. “Ignis and Gladio are already in the car – let’s get going.”

-x- 

Prompto woke up to the faint sound of a YRP song he vaguely remembered from a few years back echoing tinnily through Loqi’s headphones as he crouched on his bed – he had the volume up way too loud.

He reached for the lumpy pillow beneath his head and realised it was his bag – and then shrugged and lobbed it at Loqi’s head anyway.

“Hey!” He yelped, dodging out of the way just in time to avoid what would have been a perfect head shot. “The hell, man?”

“Told you,” Prompto yawned. “Beds are for murder. Attempted murder, at least. Turn that shit down.”

“You _like_ YRP,” Loqi protested, but did as he was asked.

“I like them when I’m awake,” Prompto said. “And I was enjoying being not awake, until they woke me up. Dilemma.”

“Dilemma,” Loqi agreed. “You want to get off the floor?”

“Yes,” Prompto said, and took the unspoken offer to crawl over and flop beside Loqi on his bed.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just sleep on the couch.”

“Because your couch sucks more than my couch does,” Prompto said, voice muffled by the blankets he was lying face down in. “And that’s saying something.”

Loqi laughed. "It really is," he agreed. "Do you remember, when we were kids and I'd stay over, how we'd refuse to sleep up in your room because that was too much like just an ordinary night?"

"Oh, yeah," Prompto recalled. "We'd like, build a fort and camp out in the lounge."

"The amount of times I fell asleep on that couch of knives and lies, I became totally convinced it was a daemon in disguise, you know? And that it would like, eat us when we sat on it."

"With its lying knife teeth?"

"With its lying knife teeth."

A laugh came from above them, and the wooden frame that supported the top bunk creaked as Aranea's head appeared over the edge, upside down. "You two sounded like you were absolutely adorable," she said. "Like, shit - what happened?"

Prompto didn't have any projectiles lying around handy this time, so he simply flipped Aranea the bird.

"Ah, shit," Loqi said. "Sorry, did we wake you up?"

"It was the YRP, wasn't it?" Prompto asked, and Loqi kicked him.

"Actually," Aranea said, and stretched, "it was the testosterone. This place stinks of boy."

Surreptitiously, Prompto turned his head to sniff at his collar. It just smelt like the familiar scent of night air in Gralea Falls to him - drying leaves and bracken mixed with a lingering scent of diesel and motor oil that had always hung in the air around town for as long as he could remember. He narrowed his eyes at Loqi, and leant in to sniff at his shirt -

"Dude, no, fuck off," Loqi said, and shoved him away.

"Don't worry about it," Aranea said as she swung herself down to the floor. "Its just the smell of any place more than one boy sleeps in. I've been in enough tents, cabins and bunkers that I would know."

Prompto nodded. "Fair enough," he said.

"You staying for breakfast?" Loqi asked as he, too, slid out of bed and joined Aranea in stretching.

"Nah," Prompto said, and reached over Loqi to grab his bag and sling it over his shoulder. "I like, really need to get home. Mum would have been fine last night, but the longer I'm gone the more she'll work herself up into a panic."

For a minute, Loqi was quiet. "Yeah, she hasn't really gotten any better at you leaving, has she?"

Prompto sighed and shook his head. "I should never have left the falls."

"Well, you're here now," Aranea pointed out.

"Yeah," Loqi said. "Back home again."

"Right," Prompto said, and headed for the door. "Home."


	3. comings and goings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this fic [got](http://iskraeon.tumblr.com/post/158768461698/die-anywhere-else) [some](http://iskraeon.tumblr.com/post/158577320273/die-anywhere-else-joses-fic-is-killing-me-and) [fan](http://sealingdesigneejosephine.tumblr.com/post/158692603618/iskraeon-drew-die-anywhere-else-some-amazing) [art](http://sealingdesigneejosephine.tumblr.com/post/158696389418/die-anywhere-else-the-fic-that-is-slowly-but)! Thank you to my good friend [@iskraeon](http://iskraeon.tumblr.com)

The morning air was bitingly cold. Prompto shivered as he exited the apartment complex the Tummelts lived in, hitching his bag up higher on his back and shoving his hands into his pockets.

At the bottom of the steps, a broom in hand, Loqi’s mother blinked at him. “Prompto?” She asked with a smile. “You’re back in town?”

“Yeah,” Prompto said, and jumped down the last few stairs so he was standing on her level. “For a while, at least.”

“How nice.” She tilted her head at him. “If you’re here – have you seen your mother, yet?”

Prompto shook his head. “No, not yet,” he said. “I was on my way home now.”

Lira hummed. “Good idea to hurry,” she said mildly. “There’s a new family moving into one of the houses by the square; the entire town will be out in droves hoping to catch a glimpse of them before long. If you wanted to avoid being sighted – and people asking questions – then you should probably try to get inside before the sun gets too high in the sky.”

Prompto laughed. “Sound advice, Lira,” he said. “Thank you.”

With that, he left her to whatever it was she had been doing with her broom – brushing chalk scribbles and dust away? Some of Loqi’s siblings must have been amusing themselves with street art again. This early, the streets were near empty, everyone either inside their homes or getting stores ready to open; too busy to pay much attention to some kid in a jacket and beanie walking through the main street.

Eventually, his house stood in front of him, looming over him, and he swallowed. His mother had always been fairly ‘hands off’ when it had come to policing him – but that didn’t mean he didn’t dread having her question him as to why he had come home so suddenly, in such a hurry, especially considering that she hadn’t wanted him to leave in the first place and he’d been the one to argue that he was an adult with every right to go to Gralea if he wanted.

He walked slowly up the steps, and unlocked the door with the key that had never even left his pocket for as long as he’d been in the capital – the metal was warm when he turned it over in his hand.

“Mum?” He called out, and stepped into the entrance hall, closing the door behind him. The small, narrow hallway that stretched out to the kitchen and the lounge; the staircase, was still covered all over in photos that he had taken over the years – and not just of personal things and ‘people’ memories, but of flowers, dogs, lens flares over trees and silver pinpricks of stars against a navy night backdrop: his so called ‘hall of fame’ that his mother had refused to take down ever since he’d taken up photography.

“Prompto?” His mother’s voice came from the kitchen, thick with sleep – but it was warm, and familiar, and so much better for being heard in person and not through a phone line, tinny and undeniably distant. “Oh, thank god you’re okay.” She stepped out into the hall, still dressed in her pajamas, and smiled at him. “I was going to call the Tummelt building after my coffee, you know – I’d figured you had stayed there.”

“Yeah,” Prompto admitted, and leapt forward to wrap his mother into a hug that she returned with a tight squeeze and a laugh. “Crashed on Loqi’s floor.”

She laughed again, and ruffled his hair before stepping out of his arms. “You and your aversion to couches.”

Prompto shrugged. “If all the couches made in imperial territory weren’t made of hidden knives I wouldn’t have a problem with them.”

“As if you know the couches anywhere else are better, brat.”

“True,” Prompto acknowledged. “It’s entirely possible they suck everywhere. A continent wide couch cushion conspiracy.”

His mother widened her eyes and gasped, as if in shock. “What it it’s a _worldwide_ conspiracy?” She asked.

“Concocted by doctors to give people back issues at a younger and increasingly younger age so that they can make more money,” Prompto said. “Mum, I think we’ve cracked it.”

The smile on her face as she tilted her head at him, eyes miles away, was melancholy. “You’ve grown,” she said softly. “But you haven’t changed.”

He squinted at her, confused. “It’s me, mum,” he said. “I never will.”

“You say that, but even though you’ve been there for a while now, you don’t know the capital like I do.” A shadow crossed her face. “Gralea changes you, and not for the better – I should have known that _you_ , at least, would be able to stay upbeat after going there.” She shook herself, and her smile became bright, more genuine, as she cupped his cheeks. “My little sunshine,” she said, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Prompto felt his cheeks warm. “Love you, mum,” he mumbled, and quickly ducked down to peck a kiss on one of her cheeks.

“Missed you, honey,” she said. “I’m glad you’re home. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Ah – no,” he admitted. “I kind of wanted to get home before the rumour mill kicked in.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” his mother reassured him. “There are new people moving into town proper; your return will be old news by noon.”

“Yeah, Lira said that,” Prompto said. “Know anything about them?” He asked while he wandered into the kitchen. “We have bread for toast, right?”

“Yeah, we have bread,” she said. “Toaster is set for crumpets, though, so you might want to dial it down. And as for the newcomers, one of them is an old friend of mine. They stayed here last night.”

Prompto paused, and narrowed his eyes at his mother as he carefully slid two pieces of bread into the toaster. “Please tell me you didn’t make them suffer through the couch.”

“Just one of them!” She winked. “I put the girl up in your bed; you don’t mind, do you?”

“Do I mind that my negligent mother, who forgot about me, forcing me to trek through the woods at night and sleep on a floor I am about three hundred percent sure has never been vacuumed, gave my bed to some girl I’ve never met?” Prompto tilted his head and hummed, pretending to deliberate. “Well, maybe just a _little_ ,” he said.

His mother laughed, and shook her head at him. “I’m guessing after you’ve eaten you won’t be hanging around?”

“Nah,” he said apologetically. “Sorry, but – I kind of left Aranea with Loqi, and I’m pretty sure the two of them together will destroy the world if left without adult supervision for too long.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he caught his toast as it made a leap for the sky. “And you count as this adult supervision? I’ve never met Aranea, but from what you’ve told me you’re younger than both her and Loqi.”

“Age does not maturity make,” Prompto said. “Mother, you know this, and also you know Loqi.”

“Fair,” she allowed. “But in some ways he’s more responsible than either you or him like to give him credit for.” Concern pinched the corners of her eyes. “Is he still working that job at the Chocosnack?”

“Of course he is,” Prompto said, surprised. “Who else is hiring around here? He’d have to commute out of the falls, and that’s just not logical on the money he makes.”

“You mean the money he _keeps_ ,” she said. “Damn the Tummelts for their stupidity, I swear.”

Uncomfortable, Prompto shrugged. “I can’t judge,” he said carefully, and she blinked.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “I’m sorry – don’t tell Loqi I said that, okay?”

“I won’t,” Prompto promised. “Best to just…leave things as they are.”

“Probably,” his mother agreed, even if regret showed in her eyes. “It’s not like we could exactly _do_ anything about it, anyway.” She sighed. “This was meant to be a safe place for all of us,” she muttered. “Not another prison for our children to suffer through.”

Prompto stilled, and then very deliberately scraped butter loudly across his cooling toast. His mother got like that sometimes – she’d hidden it less and less well as he’d grown up – seeming to forget briefly that he could hear her or that she wasn’t actually thinking. It was best not to pay attention in those moments – if he questioned her she wouldn’t answer him, and it was just a huge reminder that there was something _very_ wrong with his mother, beyond just the purely physical shakes and dizzy spells and bouts of weakness she would suffer through from time to time.

He chewed silently on his toast as he stood at the bench by the sink, and wondered at how he’d left his mother alone with barely a second thought when he’d left for Gralea – so desperate for a future beyond the quiet, familiar, comforting monotony of the falls, even if he’d come running back to it the moment trouble he didn’t think he could handle had reared its head. Hadn’t he gone there – abandoned his mother _alone_ , when she needed him – because he wanted excitement? Adventure?

He sighed, and shook his head. No point in dwelling on it now – it was in the past, done and dusted, and he was back where he belonged; _home_. Gralea Falls, where nothing was daemons and everything was just _safe_.

He finished his toast and ran upstairs for a quick shower – ran through washing himself down and scraping day old product out of his hair as fast as he could so he didn’t use all the hot water, since his mother would probably want a shower too and their water heater was _shit_ – pulled on some clothes that he’d honestly forgotten he’d owned, since they’d been sitting at home in his cupboards for about six months.

He sighed as he pulled them on, just a pair of ragged jeans with holes in the knees and a plain black tank top – they smelled like dust and had creases showing visibly, obviously, where they’d sat folded – but they were his, and clean, and home, even if they were slightly too tight on him. Huh. Even if he hadn’t really noticed, it seemed that he _had_ grown, at least a little.

“I’m off!” He called out as he made his way down the stairs. “I’ll be back in time for dinner, though!”

“Bring your friends, too!” His mother called back. “I want to meet Aranea, and I haven’t seen Loqi in forever!”

“Okay!” He called back. “I will, promise!”

“I’m holding you to that!”

Quickly, Prompto jumped down the last of the steps, and pulled out his cell to send off a quick text to Aranea and Loqi before remembering that he wasn’t in the capital anymore, and reception was a thing of legend in the falls – you were better off relying on literal snails to get your message to someone more reliably. So, he sighed, and began to jog his way to the Chocosnack – if he had his schedule right, Loqi would be there by now, and he would have taken Aranea with him. Or, at least, if he’d tried to leave Aranea at the apartment, she would have followed him anyway.

He was so focused on watching his own feet that he wasn’t paying any attention to who else might be on the path – because, come on, it was the falls. No one besides him would be out walking down the street – and walked straight into someone that stumbled back with a squeak.

He blinked, and looked up to see what he could only describe as an actual, real life, human marshmallow standing in front of him – someone wrapped up in so many bulky layers of scarves and shawls over cardigans and jackets that they were nearly round enough that they could have just _rolled_ down the hill instead of walking. He blinked again, and stared. Their face wasn’t even visible.

“Um,” he said, and the marshmallow squeaked again.

“Sorry!” came a decidedly feminine and _foreign_ voice. “I should have been paying better attention to where I was going.”

“No, it’s fine, that was on me,” Prompto said. “But, er – are you…okay?”

“I’m fine!” The marshmallow reassured him, voice muffled by either hair or collar or scarf. “It’s cold here, you know?”

Prompto stared down at his tank top and bare arms. “…not really?” He said weakly.

“Well, you’re a local, right? You’re probably used to it.”

“…It’s Summer.”

“ _Used to it!_ ” The voice sang. “I wish I could deal with the cold. I can’t. It sucks.”

_Aranea, a new family, and now_ this, Prompto thought, slightly overwhelmed and more than a little bewildered. _For as long as I can remember, the only newcomers to the falls were the ones_ born _here. What makes now so special all of a sudden?_ It was almost as if – crazy as the thought was – his return home had _triggered_ something, some sort of paradigm shift. Had his trouble managed to follow him back home?

He shook his head clear of thoughts. _Don’t be stupid_ , _Prompto_ , he chided himself.

“So, um…” there was hesitance clear in the voice, even as muffled as it was. “Could you point me to the church?”

Prompto blinked back to a sudden awareness – he’d honestly almost forgotten the marshmallow was there. “You’re going the wrong way,” he said apologetically. “You passed your turn a bit back there – _up_ the hill, not down here. It’s just at the edge of the woods that side of town.”

“Thank you!” The voice said. “Please, enjoy the rest of your day!”

“You too,” Prompto said, and held up his hand in a wave as he watched her run away faster than anyone that buried in their own clothing should be able to. He sighed – that may have been the weirdest, most unexpected thing that could have happened to him that morning.

He squinted up at the sky – the morning grey dawn light had lifted into a powder blue shade, and he couldn’t see any clouds – he crossed his fingers, and started making his way back up to town again, hoping that that was the weirdest thing he would see all day, and not some kind of omen.


	4. meet and part

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dudes. dudes. I updated, it's a miracle.
> 
> Persona 5 has sort of devoured my life for a while and will probably continue to do so, both in the world of playing the game to completion and in writing some fics because I have _ideas_.
> 
> Which is not to say I'm letting my XV fics down - I'm not - just that my schedule is going to be really sporadic and flighty...which is, let's face it, par for the course with me.

The lights of the Chocosnack were that particular dim yellow shade that always left Aranea’s eyes smarting and blinking trails of silver-white out of her vision, and she winced as she made her way through the few aisles set up in the store. It was, as the name implied, mostly snack foods, the kind that could sit sealed on a shelf for years without truly expiring – and, grimacing at the dust gathered around the packets of crisps, she felt as if they had been doing exactly that.

That, or, well, Loqi just didn’t know how to dust, since he seemed to be the only employee here.

“Hey,” she called out. “I don’t exactly have any cash on me right now, so is there any way I could start a tab here?”

“Nope,” Loqi’s voice echoed back to her. “The owner doesn’t like IOUs. But like, there aren’t any cameras in here, and I’m not actually looking, nor do I care, so just take whatever.”

Aranea’s lips twisted into something close to a smirk, and she shrugged as she reached for a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, tearing it open as she made her way back to the front of the store, where Loqi stood behind the counter and at the till.

Her lips curled up slightly at the fine sheen of grease that visibly covered the counter under the harsh yellow of the lights, and she gingerly leant up against the counter. Loqi briefly looked up at her but was quickly focusing back on whatever was so interesting on his phone once more, and she hummed as she tilted her head back and let her gaze rove over the store.

There were cracks in the ceiling and where paint wasn’t peeling in the corners it was just as yellowed as the lights. “How old is this place?” She asked.

“About twenty years, same as the rest of the town,” Loqi said, and Aranea blinked.

“ _Really?_ ” she thought back to the houses she’d seen lined up all neat and the rusted fences she and Prompto had passed on their journey the night before. The falls felt like any small town she’d ever been to – eternal and melding in a way that suggested it had been there forever, just springing into existence all at once centuries earlier. The weathered stone, the cracked pavement…all of it, only two decades old?

She frowned. No, she wasn’t imagining things – the falls definitely _looked_ older than twenty.

“Really,” Loqi said, interjecting his words into her train of thought. “Parents and a few adults moved out of the capital while we were still wee babes. It was a while ago, so a lot of the memories are hazy, but a lot of the houses were built while we played in the construction areas. It’s how Prompto got that scar on his elbow – we were being stupid around the scaffolding.”

Aranea laughed lightly. She _had_ noticed that scar, white and raised and jagged on his elbow, thanks to his tendency to wear tank tops rather than sensible sleeves, and had questioned him about it the first time she’d caught a glimpse – _I fell, when I was a kid_ , he’d said. She’d figured he’d meant from a _tree_ , not a construction site.

She rolled against the counter so that she was facing Loqi, and he raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Did Prompto say what time he would be getting back?” She asked. “I wasn’t really paying attention when he left.”

Loqi shrugged. “He’ll either be here soon or we won’t see him all day,” he said. “Depends on how his mum’s doing. He knows my shift schedule, after all; I mean, it hasn’t changed in six years.”

Slowly, Aranea nodded. “Fair enough,” she said, and chucked another handful of chips into her mouth.

Loqi glanced up at her with the sound of the packet crinkling, and screwed up his face. “Heathen,” he said. “How can anyone eat those and enjoy them?” Aranea grinned, and Loqi narrowed his eyes at her. “You eat pineapple on pizza, too, don’t you?”

The tinny, digital sound of the automated door alarm triggered as the doors were opened and someone entered the store – Prompto walking in, just in time to raise his brows at the two of them. “Who’s ruining pizza?” He asked.

“The world as a whole,” Loqi said without missing a beat, raising his hand in greeting, and Aranea blinked as Prompto returned the wave with a nod and made a beeline for the glass front fridge by the counter, pulling out a can of cola before he leant up against the counter next to her. Apparently shoplifting was just a thing Loqi encouraged in friends – or rather, didn’t discourage at all.

“Fair enough,” Prompto said, and slid his gaze to Aranea as it became clear that Loqi was completely engrossed in whatever was on his phone’s screen and not looking his way anytime soon. “So, you think Loqi’s top bunk will do you for a while?”

Humming, Aranea nodded. “I’ve slept in worse places,” she said. “My parents place, for one.”

Prompto snorted as he tilted his can of cola back, and slammed it down on the counter fast as he choked – on laughter, and carbonated bubbles. Aranea grinned. “So how was your mother?” She asked. “Am I going to get to meet her anytime soon?”

“Yeah, actually,” Prompto gasped out as he recovered from his brief fit. “She wants you to come over for dinner tonight. Both of you,” he added, and looked towards Loqi.

Loqi nodded. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’m not going to say no to dinner at Sol’s.”

Prompto tilted his head, and narrowed his eyes at Loqi. “Have you heard?” he asked. “About the newcomers.”

“A little,” Loqi said, and placed his phone down by the till. “Kinda hard to avoid the news on the gossip mill when your mother’s the one running it.”

Aranea quirked a brow. “Newcomers?” She asked, and they both turned to her, blinking as if they’d just realised that of _course_ she wouldn’t know the significance of whatever it was they were talking about.

“People…they don’t come to the falls,” Prompto said. “Not unless they need gas or photographs or – I don’t know, directions or something. The only people that stay here are the ones born and buried here. I can’t even remember the last time we had _anyone_ new move into town.”

“Never,” Loqi said starkly. “My mother, queen of the gossip mill as aforementioned, keeps records of everyone in the entire town, and since settlement twenty years back the only new permanent residents have been the ones born here.”

Prompto nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” he said. “But hey, did your mum say anything else about any other newcomers? I ran into one on the way here; dressed weird, wanted directions to the church.”

A frown creasing his face, Loqi shook his head. “Maybe they were just a part of this new family?” He suggested. “I haven’t heard anything, and I would have if my mum knew, which of course she would, because Lira Tummelt is goddamn psychic – why they’d want directions to the church, though, is beyond me, because that place has been boarded up for urgent renovations and repairs for weeks. A bunch of the really old, really devout Eos types have been up in arms with the council about it.”

Prompto huffed out a breath. “Yeesh,” he said. “No wonder mum seemed so tired. I remember how they were about co-ed sports teams and events back when we were in grade school – haven’t gotten any better than?”

Loqi shook his head, no. “You have any plans for today?” He asked, and looked between the two of them. “I don’t mind if you hang about here until I close – in fact, please do if you have nothing more urgent to get to; save me from my own personally inflicted hell – but if you have things today, don’t linger on my account.” He picked up his phone. “I’ve got King’s Knight to keep me entertained.”

Aranea felt her face screw up. Prompto had been trying for months to get her to download the game onto her own phone, since servers that reached out to and past Niflheim’s borders were new – before, the Accordo based development studio had refused to publish their game within the empire, and in its own way, for her, that smarted. You couldn’t _not_ feel at least _some_ loyalty to a nation after serving within its military, even if you thought the people _running_ said nation needed to take a very long walk off of an equally short pier.

At the call of video games, Prompto perked up. “Oh, hell yeah,” he muttered, and pulled out his own phone. Aranea leant in curiously, and rolled her eyes when she saw him booting up his own King’s Knight app. “Dude, here – my ID, add me.”

Loqi peered at Prompto’s screen before tapping at his own, making a grumbling noise as both of their phones bleeped in unison, establishing that a mutual friending had taken place. “You’re level twenty,” he said accusingly. “You’ve had this on your phone for how long now, all without adding me?”

Prompto shrugged, letting out a nervous chuckle. “Didn’t really think about it,” he said, and his eyes lit up. “ _Oh!_ Aranea and I – and a couple of friends – we have a Daemontower guild, you should join up with us sometime!”

Interest plainly showed in Loqi’s eyes, but he shook his head. “Send me the details later,” he said. “The two of you can go do whatever until dinner, since I can already see you both climbing the walls within the hour if I let you stay.”

Aranea laughed – she had far better self-control and discipline than that – but at the same time, she couldn’t really protest the label. Out here, with Prompto her only anchor of familiarity and the utter lack of mechanical, artificial functionality of Gralea, she felt freer and younger than she had in a while. It was entirely possible that she could just let her control slip a bit – highly likely that she already had, at least a little, considering how easily she was laughing.

“Whatever, dude,” Prompto said, in that tone he liked to use when the other person was right and he didn’t want to admit it. “I’ll see you later, right? At dinner?”

“Yeah, tell Sol her VIP invite is RSVPing for sure,” he said. “Around six?”

“Better make it seven,” Prompto advised. “Mum will want to grill Aranea about my life in Gralea.”

“Six then,” Loqi said. “I wanna see that.”

“Bring popcorn,” Aranea advised, and Loqi shot her a grin and a nod as Prompto made a whining noise of protest.

“Absolutely,” Loqi said. “Have fun around town today.”

“Hey, yeah,” Aranea said, and turned to Prompto. “ _You_ owe me a tour, mister.”

Prompto blinked. “I suppose I do,” he said. “…wanna check out the new people first?”

“You mean, do I want to snoop?”

“…Yes?”

“Then, yes. Of course. I’m always up for a good snooping.”

Prompto laughed as they walked out of the Chocosnack’s automatic doors. “I know. I’ve heard things – get enough alcohol into Biggs and Wedge, and they’ll start telling you anything.”

Aranea smirked. “That works both ways, you know, and they drink around me even more than they do you. I’ve got _loads_ of college stories to share with your mother.”

Prompto scowled at her. “Truce?” He asked.

She considered him. “…Truce,” she agreed.


End file.
